THE LAST 48 HOURS

Two guys (if you know what I mean) were renting our Arizona house. They requested an early termination from their lease because they could no longer pay their bills…. Allow me to recount various memories from the very last minute trip to AZ.

SAT. 6pm

We arrive at our rental property tired from a long week, but in good spirits. Walk into the house…. and the bad spirits come (j/k). FYI: When I’m surrounded by filth, my brain just involuntarily shuts down. Subsequently, the condition of this house virtually immobilizes me…. there was SO much to be done! Evidently, (according to Matt) I just walked from room to room hugging myself and repeating “oh my.” Matt dials my mom because he thinks I’m having a mental breakdown… no answer; I check my calendar… yep she still has another two days of laying on the perfect Hawaiian sand while her daughter slips into a coma…. Matt helps me into the truck and literally drags me through the aisles of Home Depot, whereby, I walk around like a strung-out zombie (he lost me three or four times). The two bins of cleaning supplies we brought from CA were definitely NOT going to suffice, so we spend another $300 on ultra heavy duty cleaners and new locks.

My wonderful sister must have known I was about to burst into tears and was waiting at our house when we got there. Her “horse” did make me smile because he came with his own personal (and very massive) satellite.

6:30pm

Our tenants agree to let us begin cleaning the house, but plan on sleeping there “one last night.” GOOD GRIEF! We don’t want to fight (even though they were living in our house for free at this point….) so sister and I commence cleaning the guest bathroom. We take down their NASTY shower curtain and stagger backwards three steps. We couldn’t figure out what color the shower had become (puke-yellow with a smattering of black?). Time to get to work! Amid our two hour shower scrubbing session, tenant #1 comes in shirtless (his overweight and hairy self…), “Oh, I’ve been showering in here because I don’t fit in the master bath shower…” My sister and I have no words, just stare back in disillusionment. I cannot comment any further…. (“If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say it at all...”). However, I will say, that after drenching the entire bathroom with soap-scum remover, CLR, tile-cleaner, bleach and ammonia we finally scrubbed it back to white….

And in case you didn’t know how awesome my sister is, she tackled the toilet… J

Side-note: Jeff and Megan, we could NOT have done without you two. There are no words for how incredible thankful we are that you would spend your Saturday night and entire Sunday in rubber gloves with us! We REALLY REALLY REALLY appreciate you guys being there for us and for ALL your hard work.

8:30pm

Matt’s been working in the kitchen- decontaminating the oven, and in the guest room-- reattaching window treatments, caulking baseboards, painting etc… Jeff has been working on fans, cleaning baseboards, grabbing supplies, hauling stuff out etc…Sis moves into the laundry room and I start scrubbing the floors. We are all perfectly content to inhale more bleach, but stop dead as we hear the unmistakable sound of Megan shrieking. Everyone stops their respective tasks and tentatively peek in. Jeff is the only one brave enough to put on the orange rubber gloves and grab the pink man-thong and used condom from behind the dryer… Bah-ha-ha… OH MY….

12am

Definitely time to call it a night!

SUN. 7am

Sissy wakes us up with a much needed delicious cup of coffee. J We get to the house around 8 and let ourselves in…

Our 2 tenants are sleeping soundly in the master… (GGRRRRRR)

Since they still had stuff to move out, I kindly waited till 8:15am to start running the vacuum... (I.E. Get up, move your stuff out, oh, and pay me…).

We charge on with the nasty:

Master bathroom = 2 hours

Other 2 bedrooms = 1 hour

New faucets = 1 hour

N in Out = 10 min.

Kitchen and Living Room = 3 hours

“Sickness” = 10 min. (I think I inhaled so much ammonia all the N in Out wanted to come out, so I crawled outside for some fresh air.)

Back Patio = 1 hour

Fans = 30 min.

Garage/ truckload to the dump = 1 hour

5:15 pm. = clean house! And new tenants! The whole gang heads to Oreganos…

This moment of our lives would be entirely captured if I didn’t tell you about the Lord’s provision. We had been praying for excellent tenants for a couple weeks… Turns out DJ and Danielle had been married about four weeks prior, and were tired of hiding their 2 “cockapeiners” (real dogs, I promise) in their one bedroom apartment J. DJ, who had been in Matt’s D-group a few years back, had heard that we were renting our old place and jumped on it. (It’s so encouraging to see people grow up and “get it;” It is apparent that both he and Danielle love the Lord) I was SO encouraged to meet his lovely bride. I instantly loved Danielle!!! She’s SO incredibly sweet and fun; in the way that makes whatever you’re doing better. Dinner was full of laughs as we recounted great memories (worlds worst discipleship leader EVER [Matt]… let his guys do back-flips off our roof into the pool?!?). We luved hearing their story and wished we had more time to catch up.

9p.m.

We were supposed to be driving back to CA because we both worked on Monday, but the Red Bull isn’t combating our exhausted, raw, sore bodies… We crash at Meg’s again

MON. 4:30am

I drive, Matt sleeps

7am

The “crackberry” is awake!

Emergency graft needed at 8… we call Brother Dan and beg…

Hip tray needed… we stop in Palm Springs and add it to our pile in the back of the truck

9:30am

Phone is still ringing

Kiss each other goodbye and are off to work….